


I'll be around the bend

by brighterthansunshine



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 03:10:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/844618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brighterthansunshine/pseuds/brighterthansunshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'I wore it to match whatever hideous sweater you'd be sporting,' Lydia's already toeing off her flats, one foot onto Mary's marble floor.</p><p>'How thoughtful,' Mary says, and feels like she's just completed a cycle when Lydia smiles again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll be around the bend

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from John Mayer's 'Wheel'

Lydia shows up on her doorstep on a Wednesday.

Even if it's cold out, Lydia is dressed in a loose, gray sweater and a skirt almost three inches below her knees and it occurs to Mary that it would possibly be rude but the first thing that Mary says, pure instinct: 'Are you okay?'

That earns a smile, and it's different from what she remembers, quieter and rougher around the ages, and Mary tries not to let it come back to her -- the whole thing about leaving Lydia alone to fall down that (figurative, George Wickham shaped) hill because _Lydia_ left first, anyway. At some point, Mary had just stopped... watching altogether, somehow figuring that it'd work itself out because Mary'd figured George had something resembling a conscience. (Evidently, she later found that she was quite wrong.)

But Lydia's back on her front porch, smile across her face, and it takes all of Mary to hold in a _sorry_.

'I wore it to match whatever hideous sweater you'd be sporting,' Lydia's already toeing off her flats, one foot onto Mary's marble floor.

'How thoughtful,' Mary says, and feels like she's just completed a cycle when Lydia smiles again.

+

It's not like they're not going to talk about it. Mary's a firm believer in talking about things. Just... maybe not now, when Lydia's stupid laughter flits across the whole house and Mary jabs desperately at a button as Lydia knocks her off the Mario Kart track again. 

Mary's almost edged up on Lydia's Princess Peach kart (which, honestly, looks like someone puked frosting all over it, but whatever) when Lydia slams the _pause_ button.

'Can you turn up the thermostat?'

'You had to choose _now_ to ask because? And you're wearing a sweater, Lydia.'

'I know, turn it up so I can take it off. _Duh_.'

Mary hits _resume_. 

'No removals of sweaters at the hideous sweater convention.' She swerves past Princess Peach in what Mary considers to be an epic display of Mario Kart skill. 'Isn't that rule number one?'

Mary wins the round. Lydia insists they move on to baking.

+

They're in the middle of beating eggs into the batter when Lydia looks up, quietly.

'Are you going to Yale? I heard Aunt Bennet say you'd applied to it, and with your scores I can't see why they would --'

'I don't know.' That means yes, Lydia thinks. 'Maybe.'

'Does that mean you're moving away?'

'I said _maybe_ , Lydia.'

'So that's a yes.'

Lydia picks up the whisk and beats harder, averting her eyes from everything -- the photo of Mary in her stupid, fancy graduating hat on the kitchen fridge, the lame card she'd drawn Mary when she was lonely tacked right beside it. And Mary's gaze. 

'Lydia.'

'I'm sorry. I really - I thought you'd be the _one person_ who would just, not -- just tell me how stupid I am, Mary. Just tell me how stupid I am for pretending like it didn't happen, and everyone is playing along -- and I thought the only person who wouldn't bother was _you_ but you're just the same as all of them.' 

'Hey,' Mary says, and it feels almost foreign, Lydia's trembling against her open palms, but Mary pulls her almost awkwardly into a tight hug. Lydia stops shaking after a while, but Mary's grip doesn't loosen.

'I do think you're stupid,' Mary says, and her voice muffles into Lydia's sweater. 'But for failing to appreciate the absolute literary _genius_ that is Kurt Vonnegut, of course.'

She feels Lydia laugh against her, a half-sigh that feels like Lydia had been holding her breath for far too long.

+

They play stupid card games on Mary's bed before Lydia looks up, eyes still red, and declares that there is a strange occurence.

'I'm here, and yet the party hasn't started.' Lydia says party _,_ as in _par-tay_ , and Mary wonders if the girl she knew might finally be coming back, in bits and pieces, in faded patterns. Well, she means, does it matter _how_ it's happening as long as it is?

'Oh, Lydia, _please_ -' Mary's smiling, despite everything, because the grin that crosses Lydia's is round and full and _something_ , something from long ago and something that sort of lights up the room. (not that Mary would ever admit it)

 

They have a tea party after Mary invites Eddie over (by orders of the honourable Princess Bennet, of course).

'Sir Eddie, please, pour me some tea.'

'I'm not sure Victorian courts worked like this.' Eddie's hand shakes as he angles the teapot. 

'They didn't,' Mary adds.

'You guys just don't understand the meaning of creative liberty.' Lydia's voice takes on a strange lilt, and she drawls, like all those bad historical actors on the TV, 'What a shame, Lady Mary, I thought you far better than this.'

Above the roar of dubstep in the background, Mary announces that this is the worst party that she's ever attended in her life.

'I don't know,' Eddie shouts, 'I kind of like it!'

+

'Lydia's really weird,' Eddie's still shouting even in the quiet of the front porch.

'I know,' Mary laughs, pressing a kiss onto his cheek.

'I like her!'

Their neighbour yells to _keep it down_ from the opposite house, and Eddie shouts back something about old people.

'Yeah,' Mary says. 'I like her too.'

+

It's not like it's really just _gone_. 

Lizzie calls, and all that, to check if she's fine, speaking like Lydia's twelve or something. Jane calls after that, too, because the Bennet sisters somehow never really improved on their communication skills. Or maybe it's the whole wedding preparation thing. Whatever. Lydia strides right into the room when Mary puts down the phone.

'Was that Eddie?'

'No, it was the milkman.'

'You're lactose intolerant.'

' _You're_ supposed to be trying out dresses for your whole bridesmaid falooza a hundred miles away from here.' 

'Whatever,' Lydia smiles. 'Do you have, like, face masks around here?'

'I have a _Scream_ one from Halloween of '09,' Mary laughs. 'Wait, let me just dig it out, it's going to do _wonders_ for your complexion.'

'Shut up.'

+

Lydia makes fun of Mary's _Star Wars_ sheets when it's time for bed.

'Respect it, or you sleep on the floor.'

'Sheesh, Grouchy Mc Spouchy.' Lydia relents, at least.

They share a silence as Mary brushes her teeth.

'It wasn't your fault, you know,' Mary says through her toothbrush. 'And I should've done... I don't know.' She pauses. 'Something.' It feels almost too casual, but it also feels _right_ , like it's the way Lydia would want it. The unspoken _sorry_ hangs tentatively in the air.

Lydia's had this talk before. With like, three friends and her whole family. But this feels different. Mary's teetering on the edge of _maybe_ and _perhaps_ and _I don't know_ and it feels far away, so far behind that Lydia can almost... talk about it. Calmly.

_Rinse. Spit. Rinse._

__'Maybe,' Lydia says, and it feels like more than she's ever said on the topic, even if it's close to nothing. She changes her mind. 'I don't know.'

_Spit._

Mary wipes her mouth on her arm and crawls back into bed.

'Ew.'

'My house, my bed, my sweater.'

Lydia laughs, but it's subdued, like most of what she does these days.

'When you want to talk about it -' Mary corrects herself. 'No, if. If you ever want to.'

Lydia wraps the sheets around her, the silence ebbing and flowing. She watches the warmth in Mary's eyes and looks at the stupid picture of them eating marshmallows around a campfire when they were young that hangs off-kilter on the the wall.

'Then we will. For now, though, I hope you dream of socking him in the face. And his abs turning into beer guts. Like, six beer guts across his stomach.'

Lydia laughs, open and wide this time, and twines her fingers with Mary's. 'Fingers crossed.'

'Fingers crossed,' Mary nods.

Lydia wears a small smile to sleep.

+

In the morning, Mary wakes up without a blanket over her, and makes pancakes for Aunt and Uncle Bennet.

Lydia's is merely an excuse for a pancake. 

+

So. It's not really _gone_ gone yet.

But maybe Lydia's getting somewhere closer to that.

And that's pretty alright, Mary thinks, watching Lydia pour yet more cookie dough onto the floor. 

At least they're moving.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I've never actually played Mario Kart. Somewhat a coda to the entire series (post episode 100) but mostly trying to figure out where Mary plays in in all of this and what the whole Disappearance meant.


End file.
